Chicken Masters: The Nugget Lunch – The Bite

Welcome back to The Bite, Sheepshead Bites’ weekly column where we explore the foodstuffs of Sheepshead Bay. Each week we’ll check out a different offering from one of the many restaurants, delis, food carts, bakeries, butchers, fish mongers, or grocers in our neighborhood. If it’s edible, we’ll take a bite.

Chicken Masters. Who hasn’t heard of it? It’s been an institution in Sheepshead Bay for 14 years, but by including its previous incarnation as Well Bred Chicken, Vinnie and his crew have been serving fried chicken, burgers, ribs and more to  the residents of Sheepshead Bay for over 30 years! What? You haven’t heard of Chicken Masters? How about Eat My Chicken? Yeah, that’s the place; the place that stuffs two or three menus in my door each week which I quickly discard. Maybe they should try advertising on Sheepshead Bites instead!

I’ve had Vinnie’s fried chicken many times, but this week my inner child was being a brat. It wanted chicken nuggets: the lovingly deep fried morsels of breaded white meat chicken that every child craves. “But wait,” nagged my inner doctor.“Where’s the fruit and vegetables? You’re not a little kid anymore.” Damn him.

So I perused the menu and came up with the perfect solution: the Nugget Lunch ($5.30, add a dollar after 3:30 p.m.). Three different types of deep fried nuggets and two sides. The nugget lunch includes four each of chicken nuggets, corn nuggets and apple pie nuggets. Meat, vegetables and fruit, all on one plate. What more could my inner doctor want?

My inner child was satiated by the chicken nuggets, my inner food critic by the corn nuggets and my inner snob, snubbed the apple pie nuggets. My inner doctor? Well, now he’s whining something about “fried food.” There’s just no pleasing some people.

Chicken Masters, 1201 Avenue Z, (718) 648-3966.